Swedish: De flesta blir föräldrar den dag som deras barn föds

[Twist-ful]

Good afternoon. I’m having difficulty in understanding the grammar behind the following sentence:

De flesta blir föräldrar den dag som deras barn föds, men så var det inte riktigt för xxxx. (The sentence is taken out of a beginner story book.)

I understand that the sentence means “Most people become parents the day their children are born, but …..” However, I don’t understand why it is DEN DAG, instead of DAGEN or possibly DEN DAGEN. Is there a reason the indefinite from of the noun dag is used with the article den?

Many thanks

 

[Segorian]

I don’t understand why it is DEN DAG, instead of DAGEN or possibly DEN DAGEN. Is there a reason the indefinite from of the noun dag is used with the article den?

No particular reason. This is simply a flexibility that exists in the language and it doesn't really matter which option is used (although den dagen occurs less frequently than the other two).

 

[Twist-ful]

Thanks for the quick reply. And is can you use all three options with other nouns when the definite article is required? For example,

Jag har läste boken/den bok/den boken som jag köpt igår.

 

[Segorian]

can you use all three options with other nouns when the definite article is required? For example,

Jag har läste boken/den bok/den boken som jag köpte igår.

No, in this sentence nearly everyone would use boken; den bok sounds stilted and den boken doesn’t work at all. Without thinking about it I’m unable to tell you when exactly all three options are idiomatic, and when only one or two of them are. If I have time I’ll come back to that in a day or two.

Since I was in a hurry I also gave an incomplete answer to your initial question:

Is there a reason the indefinite from of the noun dag is used with the article den?

In the sentence “De flesta blir föräldrar den dag som deras barn föds…”, den is considered a demonstrative pronoun, not an article. The three constructions we are discussing are therefore:

• noun+article — ( som )
• dem. pronoun — noun — ( som )
• dem. pronoun — noun+article — ( som )

This is despite the fact that in a phrase such as “Den nya boken som…” (construction with adjective), both den and -en are seen as articles (the oft-referred-to “double definite article”).

Finally, note that I placed the relative pronoun som in brackets because it can usually be dropped in sentences like this. The following is from a book club catalogue:

 

[Twist-ful]

Thanks a lot Sergorian!

In the same paragraph as the previous example, I've found two more instances of the definite article being written differently.

..... men han ville på DEN TIDEN leva som DEN UNGKARL som var.

This is strange for me as I'd learnt that the definite article for was simply tidEN and unkarlEN, and that den, det and de were used before adjectives (den stor lägenheten), but it seems to be a lot more complicated. Does anyone know of a rule for when the different versions should or can be used?

Thanks!

 

[bahrein777]

"Dagen" is your most common "the day".

"Den dagen" is roughly "that day", although I think it's used somewhat less often. It likes to come up when speaking of time ("den tiden", "det året", etc. Those even feel like semi-fixed expressions.)

"Den dag" is used when the day gets specified in the subclause that follows. (The subclause usually begins with "som"). It's rarely brought up in beginners' material as it's an edge-case, but it's an edge-case that actually comes up pretty often.